Start of Terror
by EmeraldGuardian19
Summary: The forces of Hell are swarming across the Western Kingdoms, and the worlds only hope is a group of brave addventures. Can they defeat the Prime Evils? Find out! PLEASE READ!


**Start of Terror: Chapter 1  
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"Fight boys! Fight or Die!"

Darien barely noticed the wagon-master's cry as his shield caught the edge of a rusty cutlass. He swung his sword out awkwardly, grunting as his sword met flesh with a guttural scream. He watched the creature stumble and fall, black blood oozing from the gash in its stomach, and he felt a fleeting swell of triumph before two more pushed forward to take its place.

Most of his fellows were already dead, swarmed under by horned, red-skinned monsters that had erupted from the woods around them and fallen on the sleepy camp like a crimson tide. Most of them hadn't survived the escape from that cursed glade, killed before their wearied bodies could react, much less draw a sword. Now the caravan drivers were laying about them with whatever came to hand, flailing with whips, striking with timbers, or sometimes brawling hand-to-hand with the diminutive beasts. Even the smallest wagoneer stood heads and shoulders above the largest of them, but there were so many...

As he looked out on the horde, he knew there was something unnatural at work. Howling and chanting in a harsh tongue, their lip-less, fang-filled jaws worked incessantly as they shook their weapons: most bore nothing more than sharpened sticks, or stone-headed axes, but a few wielded rusted, dull-edge swords and knives. They were unlike anything he'd seen on earth, and something lurched within him as came to accept them for what they must surely be...demons.

Chanting a prayer he once heard as a young boy, he charged forward, barreling into the crowd, his shield held in front of him like a ram. The less hardy fled with screeches of terror, but the rest met his charge, seeking to envelop him as he came to meet them. His cheap, steel-studded wood shield collided with the front rank, sending the fore-runners flying into their fellows, and he laid about him with the equally cheap sword, his chants of prayer turning to screams of rage as he waded into them. They fought to close with him, but his reach was too great, and they finally fell back before his clumsy swings, cursing in hellish tongue at the human who screamed similar expletives back.

A halfhearted cheer broke out, and Darien rose from behind his shield to see the rest of the mob retreating into the dark, leaving a dozen or more corpses behind as the remaining humans jeered at them. Darien straightened, chest heaving, and though he wanted to join in the jubilation, he knew the fight was not over. The cries from the fleeing demons was of frustration, not fear. They hadn't given up.

His knees shook. He wasn't a soldier. The only "armor" he wore was stiffened leather, not enough to turn aside even small arms. No one actually expected guards to fight; they were just for show, to discourage the occasional brigands. Sure, he played at swordsmanship, but the others had just laughed at him when he practiced, and he knew he wasn't really cut out for that kind of work. Now, his hands splattered with blood, blinking away redness from a cut above his brow, all he wanted was to go back to Westmarch; even life as a carpenter's apprentice was better than this!

He took a long, shuddering breath, and sighed with relief as he heard the wagon-master's voice cutting through the cool night air. Worry about it when you're not fighting goddam demons, alright! Survival first.

Sheathing his sword awkwardly, he turned back to the wagons, mostly intact despite the assault, save for a few cuts in the canvas, and a broken splatting of blood. The others were likewise returning to the relative safety of the circled wagons, and he followed them back into the light of the torches, where the wagon-master was waiting. He took one good look around, eyes wide as they encountered the bodies of dead wagoneers. He took a deep breath, then followed the rest, putting the visions of death out of his mind.

Standing tall despite his gimp leg, a memento of his early years as a fellow guard, Warriv gazed out on the bedraggled group that huddled around him. His hair was streaked with silver, but despite his age he still held himself with the carriage of a man who wore a sword on his hip. The ends of his stave were damp with blood, and one of the demons that had gotten through the wagon ring lay prone on the ground, it's skull caved in by the heavy rod. Darien looked around at the survivors, many of them sporting heavy wounds from the demons that had assailed them, and he saw Warriv's expression harden as the wounded limped towards him.

"Listen up!" The wagon-master's voice cut through the desperate prayers and fearful chatter of the wagoners, and they turned to him as one man. "Get the oxen harnessed and stow your gear. We need to get moving before those things come back!"

The cacophony of shouts that followed drowned out anything more he might have said, and Darien agreed with them. The time they'd spent jogging beside the wagons as the demons pursued had been a scene from a nightmare. Those that hadn't been able to keep up had been cut down by the encroaching horde, and they'd just kept on coming until they'd finally circled the wagons to make their stand.

When the voices died down, one of the drivers, a heavy-set man holding a broken tree-limb, stepped forward. "We were lucky to make it as far as we did with those...things at our heels! The only reason we're still alive is because we were able to hide behind the wagons! Besides, they can't keep this up forever. It'll be dawn soon, and everyone knows demons flee from sunlight!"

The others murmured their agreement, and Warriv snorted. "Are you willing to bet your lives on some old wive's tale? If these are demons, they're not a story to scare your kids inside at night. If we stay here, they'll cut us to ribbons! Our only choice is to make for the Monastery now!"

"We're still two days ride from the Monastery!" another protested. "It'll take even longer if we have to fight these things the whole way! We'll never make it!"

"Do you have any better ideas?" Warriv shot back. "Where are Ramon, and Dustil? Kerry? Thomas?" The audience flinched as he recited the names, and Darien gripped his sword hilt with white-knuckled hands at the mention of mention of his comrades, surrounded and cut down while the rest had made their escape. "They're gone, remember? And they at least had swords! Do you really think we can hold them off forever with sticks and clubs?"

The crowd was quiet now, reduced to mutters and glares, and many clutched their makeshift weapons tightly. Darien, the only one with a sword, shifted uneasily as a few cast envious glances his direction, but most were focused entirely on the aged wagon-master

"If we stay here, they'll get us all, eventually," Warriv went on softly, and they leaned inward to hear his voice. "At least there's a chance, if we keep moving. If they hit us again..."

The silence was complete now, and Darien bit his lip. Of the 38 Drivers and 8 guardsmen that had begun their journey, only 15, minus Warriv and himself, were still alive. While a dozen had died in the clearing, there had still been half again their number before the last onslaught.

Warriv ground his stave into the earth. "So what'll it be?"

It took all of the drivers' persuasion to get the terrified oxen moving. The horror had taken its toll on them as well, and their eyes darted about wildly as their hooves beat furiously at the ground. In the end, though, the beasts were moving again, and Darien breathed a sigh of relief as the caravan went on its way. There'd been some discussion about leaving the whole train behind, but not for long. For many, the wagons were their livelihood, and Warriv had grudgingly admitted that, if worst came to worse, it was shelter to hid behind.

The demons (he might as well call them that, for what else could they be?) had kept their distance, but he could still hear their screeching in the distance. He kept a watchful eye out, his hand never leaving his sword, and those not actively tending the wagons jogged along beside them, weapons in hand should the demons return. There was some optimism, though. If the demons held off their assault long enough, the sun would rise, and superstition or not they would be glad to see the morn after a night such as this.

One of the more shaken, Bastiff, sought Darien out, nattering on incessantly with eyes fixed on his sword, and Darien gripped it all the tighter at the naked desperation in the man's face. He went on and on about his family, how he grew up in Tristram and moved to the City, how he'd wanted to be a guard himself once and even trained with a sword, so maybe he would be better off carrying it...

It took the threat of genuine violence to finally drive him off, though the man was never out of sight, always lingering in the corner of his eye. The slimy teamster made him want to scrub his hands, should anything have rubbed off, but something he'd said made Darien think as the brightening sky heralded the sun's advance.

Like many, he'd heard rumors about the town of Tristram. That the town had fallen under the influence of a curse, and demons had borne hundreds, no, thousands to an underground chamber to be devoured. That demons ten, twenty, a hundred foot tall had stalked its streets. That the Lords of Hell held court there, and a million and one other preposterous rumors, none of them true. There was no question that evil had been done, but wise men proclaimed it the work of a mad ruler, and not demons. And yet...

And yet he had seen with his own eyes creatures he would call demons, and though they were on the other side of the continent from that cursed town, he couldn't shake the eerie feeling-

The persistent screeching rose to a fever pitch, and his head whipped around as the hills exploded with movement as scores, if not hundreds of the demons ran across the open ground. A groan went up among the survivors as the hellspawn closed in, but a voice suddenly erupted in jubilation.

"The sun!" Bastiff crowed. "The sun is rising!"

Heads whipped towards the east, Darien's among them, as the rays of the sun tipped over the horizon to pour light on the charging demons. Bastiff whooped with glee and shook his fist at the steadily-advancing ranks, eyes bulging as a mad grin spread across his face. Dropping the splintered timber he'd previously wielded and, despite a shout from Warriv, he leaped forward towards the advancing ranks. Seeing him, the demons pulled up short, as if confounded by the unarmed human that charged at them with shrieks of laughter. From within their ranks, a demon with long, curled horns and an elaborately carved staff stepped out to regard him contemptuously, and the teamster's movements became less jubilant and more desperate as he gestured towards the horizon.

"Can't you see, you idiots!" he babbled. "It's the sun! It—"

The demon held up its hand, and an orb of flame appeared in its upraised palm. Bastiff stared dumbly at the demon, still babbling as its arm shot forward and threw the sizzling sphere into his chest. There was a popping noise, like a burning log on the fire, and Bastiff screamed as he burst into flame. The other demons cackled madly as he fell to the ground, writhing and screaming as he tried to beat out the flames, but his efforts only earned more sadistic laughter as his cries grew weaker and weaker until he stopped moving.

The Darien stared at the lump of burned flesh that had once been Bastiff, and there was an eeries silence as the cackling of the demons ceased, replaced by disappointed groans. Only for an instance, though, and then the demons howled once more and charged.

It was the nightmare all over again, only this time it was worse. The demons attacked with redoubled vigor, and the indecision and cowardice that had afflicted them before was gone. They bored in on their human prey, and the staff-wielding demon drove them to greater efforts, chanting excitedly as he bore more fire aloft.

Darien was hardest-pressed, and demons pressed in from all sides. His feverish swords strikes kept them at bay still, but if they were still hesitant, they were much less so than they had been, and he found himself being pressed back more and more as wounds opened up on his arm and thighs. His sword struck flesh more often as they pressed in, but something strange happened. Several times, a demon he thought he'd struck down would stand back up and continue to press, and it wasn't until the third time that he realized why.

His sword came slashing in, and a demon howled as its arm was rent off. It fell back, clutching at its stump, and Darien started to turn to his next foe when the flesh beneath the demon's fingers began to glow a hellish red. He watched in horror as the flesh bulged outward, pressing against the demons grip as the arm grew back. In seconds, the demon held up its renewed limb, flexing it experimentally.

At that moment, another demon pressed in, but out of the corner of his eye he saw the staff-wielder lower its hand, and in that moment he felt his heart sink. No wonder these things are so emboldened; they've got that one healing them! With that realization, he knew that whatever chance they had had of escaping had vanished with its arrival. There was no way they could hope to stave off the enemy when every one that they cut down would simply hop back up again.

Unless...

The vision of Bastiff bursting into flame, of the man's agony as he was burned alive, held him in place for only a moment before he stopped his steady retreat. That was the key. That demon was the one driving the rest, and if it were gone, then...

There wasn't much time. He could already feel himself beginning to tire beneath the unrelenting assault. The healer was about 15 yards in front of him, straight through the heart of the horde, but maybe, just maybe, he could buy some more time. It was a long shot, but as his eyes scanned over the scores of demons in front of him, he knew it was the best shot he'd have. He took a deep breath, and he had one brief moment to think of Westmarch once more before he lowered his shield and charged.

None of the demons fled this time, and his shield struck a solid wall of crimson flesh. The thin wood shattered on impact, but it also bowled over the first rank, and he charged through the opening. For a moment, the creatures simply stood, surprised by the foolish human that now found itself completely surrounded, but then they leaped on him triumphantly. Stone and steel bit into him, drawing blood in a dozen places at once, but the creatures' lack of strength and sharp implements kept the blows from being mortal. Nevertheless, he felt himself grow weaker with each cut, yet he held his blade, for he was halfway through the crowd now, and his eyes were fixed on the uplifted staff of the healer. He felt each wound strike home, but he stopped caring; putting his sword through that demon's heart was the only thing that mattered now.

Finally realizing his goal, the healer gave a desperate shout before pulling a ball of fire from the air and hurling it at him. Its aim left much to be desired, however, and the ball veered left to plow into a clump of demons, who screamed as the fire spread over them. It wasn't much, but the distraction provided just enough distraction for him to close to withing 10 feet, and he drew back his arm to strike.

Pain. A lightning bolt of agony lanced through his leg, and he collapsed to his knees as one of the demons came from behind and hamstrung him. He tried to stand, but the leg would not heed him. Ahead of him, the demonic healer stood, seemingly bemused by its last second reprieve, and it seemed to sneer at him, though its unnatural visage made that uncertain. It held out its palm once more, about to summon another ball of fire, and, without thinking, Darien threw his sword at it.

It wasn't a particularly good throw, but the distance was short, and the blade dug into the creature's shoulder to draw out a scream, and the other demons rushed in with weapons raised, their hands stayed only by a choked exclamation from the hearler. Sullenly, they backed off once more, and the healer drew the sword out with a snarl of pain and cast it aside. Its hand glowed as it hovered over the wound, and in seconds the skin had grown back over it. Pumping its arm a couple of times, it glared at him, then held its palm out once more, cupping a ball of fire.

As he knelt there, staring down death, Darien felt oddly at peace. The fighting had died down when the demons had broken off their attack to watch, and an eerie quiet drifted over the killing ground. As he stared into the glowing orb in the demon's hand, he had to wonder if he was getting the better deal; the others might survive a few minutes longer, but at least for him the nightmare would be over.

The demon pulled back its arm to throw, and Darien closed his eyes—

A meaty thunk broke the silence, and Darien's eyes flew open to see the demon crumple, an arrow buried to the fletching in its forehead. The other stared, shocked into immobility at the healer's sudden demise, and then there was the twang of bow strings as a hailstorm of arrows came slashing in. The demons melted as the shafts burrowed into their ranks, and a few made to escape, but none made it far. In the space of a dozen heartbeats, the horde was no more.

Darien's jaw worked soundlessly as he gazed about him at the scores of dead and dying demons, and then he turned towards the small copse of trees from which the arrows had come. From out of the brush, dozens of bowmen emerged, arrows nocked as they slowly advanced on the wagon.

One of them split off from the rest, picking its way through the sea of red-skinned bodies, the white-pupil eye on its tunic gleaming in the early morning rays, and Darien felt himself stir as he noticed that this bowman (and all the others, he realized with a start) was female. He turned to watch Warriv limp across the field towards the advancing bow-women, scratching his head as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing. He heard a voice beside him, and turned his head to see the first bow-woman squatting at his side, gazing at him expectantly.

"W-what?" he mumbled.

"Are you alright?" the archer repeated.

Darien stared at her for a long second, then looked down. "My leg..."

She nodded briefly, then turned and waved her hand in a strange pattern towards the other archers. Another wave answered her, and she nodded as one of the women made her way over with a rope and wood-piece; a splint, he realized. Satisfied, she turned to him once more and stood. "Don't worry," she assured him. "It's safe now. You're now under the protection of the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye." Darien nodded, bemused, as she moved away to give the woman with the splint room to work, then made her way to rejoin the group.

The nightmare was over...for now.


End file.
